Oh,

Hai!

Take it at face value...I mean, all along I've said the situation is not thrilling on the surface (I have no love for UB), but that I respect Bax, his decision-making ability and that the situation probably has more complexity than we are privy to.

And now that Bax has made his comment in the thread, let me say to him, Congrats!

They knew players were cheated out of millions of dollars and stayed silent hoping it would go unnoticed. Once it was noticed they stonewalled for over 5 months.

Make it RIGHT? What are you smoking? This is permanently wrong. Irreversable.

for all the new players out there bitching about this deal, you should know that bax has earned the right to do pretty much whatever he wants for being the man back in the day.

qft.

UB/AP, did the unthinkable, developed software to see hole cards and cheated it's own customers out of million of dollars, then lied about it and are still covering it up until this day!! We will never know the full truth of how long they stole for and how much money was stolen, AND NOBODY WILL DO 1 DAY IN JAIL for this. Regardless of who they sign as pros I for one will never ever play on either of these sites again.

To add to your point, if UB had half a brain and some type of professional management, they would first address the NioNio scandal, talk about about their action plan to become a safe place to play again and then annouce their signing, and talk about Bax's role going forward. It doesn't seem appropriate to sign Bax just for the sake of announcing a top pro signing.

It's amazing that a company that appears to be somewhat successful is f'n up so bad. I don't think this situation has been handled correctly.

Maybe they should hire some PR help.

PS I will probably never play on UB/AP and not renew PokerXFactor.

I don't see the big deal here unless Bax publicly spoke out against UB in the past, if not, then I'm happy for him.

You use the term 'current management' perhaps referencing that it is different than the management that was in place during the insider cheating scandal(6 months ago). I believe most people are under the impression that the current management are actually the ones that were doing the cheating, stealing, lying, stalling and covering up so I think that may be where a lot of obvious skepticism lies. How could the current management possibly provide a satisfactory resolution to the superuser issue if they were in fact the superuser. If the current management team you did the sponsorship deal with has replaced those who most are under the impression were behind the scandal, any info clarifying this would be great.

Bax

The current management, the one you are "confident" in, has lied to us, deceived us, and flat out hustled us out of millions of dollars. And then when the issue was brought to light after hours and hours of investigation done by us without their help, they ignored us for a long, long time.

These are the crooks you are choosing to align yourself with today.

I hope these criminals are paying you a lot of the money that they stole from us.

YES

Also, Shawn Deeb's ******ed stance finally makes sense now that we know he's probably being backed by Bax & Co.

w/o even moving on to the next page, i have a feeling that the gasoline has just hit the....

Cliff, since we know you come from a business rather than degenerate gambling background, can you explain why it was wise for the information of your partnership to come out PRIOR to UB releasing any/all info on the superuser scandal?

in hindsight (although man it would be nice if UB used some foresight) wouldn't it have played out better to have you announced as signing on to HELP with the issues, as a spokeperson, player's advocate, etc?

i really want to think that UB is going to turn the corner, but these guys seem like complete fsckups. i know several people from the local business community where i live that are millionaires purely from luck. they mostly are successful in spite of themselves. i am beginning to think UB is in this category also.

ps - i haven't play at UB in 3-4 years and really dislike their software. so no amount of signing you up is going to fix that. i just am interested for "poker's sake."

Bax is behind Team Wafflecrush? i knew it!

pretty sure deeb has his own backing operation going on. i think he still plays at ub because there's dead money there and he's a black jack fiend.

Shaun, as your friend (sigh) I highly suggest you not post in this thread (or on this subject) ever again.

does he get to wear that cool azz racing outfit at live tourney's?

Shaun backs others under the name "wafflecrush", but i distinctly remember hearing him say he was backed whilst also backing others - probably on the 2+2 pokercast he did not too long back. Which would make sense given the fact he seems to be playing live events a fair amount

Its probably not relevent that he is backed, but having had a professional relationship and possibly a longer term friendship with Bax would make things a bit clearer given his opinions on other cheating in poker events and this situation both the broad view of UB and the narrow view of Bax taking up a roll within the company given that the two things dont seem to tally.

I mean, its clearly a similar set of circumstances with Shaniac, given what people know of him and the views he has taken in the past with regard to being whiter than white and reputation being everything for him to not really given much of an opinion either way is probably linked to him being backed in the past by Bax, potentially backed by him in the future and there is a solid likelyhood they are friendly if not close friends.

I for one want to applaud Mike Johnson and the pokercast guys for being one of very few poker media outlets adressing this issue in the way it deserves (which is to say repeatedly, over and over again until hopefully every single UB player knows they are doing business with what amounts to a bunch of xxxxin thieves). Here we are, as a poker community, facing so much adversity from shady sites and shady site managements, bot-programmers, cheats and governement officials. Basically people outside of the true (playing) poker community that will do anything to steal, lie or cheat their way to a nice, quick healthy chunk of what we bust our butts to scrape together every day. And now, one of the most respected members of this community has decided to partner himself and lend his respected name to perhaps the shadiest site out there. I for one want to throw up. One father to another; is the example you want to set for your kids? Is this your legacy? To recieve monetary gains from a company that, in part, has acquired these funds by scamming, lying, stealing and cheating its patrons? If the money really has no value (which I believe to be a bold faced lie), then help UB sort out their problems pro bono, JohnnyBax. Because every cent you recieve is bloodmoney from the pockets of the cheated players that are helping to sustain the lifeblood of this poker economy by gambling their hard earned dollars day in, and day out. Is this how you pay back to the community that has made you what you are?

Open notice to those involved with PokerXFactor (and I'm sure I'm not alone):

Without a satisfactory resolution to the UB/AP situation, Bax's signing with UB reflects badly upon your coaching site, and it will go to the bottom of the list of coaching sites I'll be joining in the near future. Bax's assurances sound the same as AP's assurances and UB's assurances, and we can all see how those have turned out.

If UB can restore its name and once again become a respectable site that I trust, then I can say the same of PokerXFactor. Until then, be aware of the impact this will have on your business. I'm only one potential subscriber, but there are many who seem to share my opinion.

Best wishes,

Simon

I didn't freak out when I read this thread. I have a lot of faith in Bax's judgement and wish him good luck. Just another thing for him to add to the resume when its all said and done.

well said !

It may be worth nothing that other sites have had (albeit less devestating) scandals which never saw the light of day. Namely, bots were used extensively on almost every major site in the past, and the only time players were ever reimbursed was when it was made a huge public deal. Even [most reliable site I don't wan to go on record criticizing] will simply say "we can't give out info about individual accounts, but we will look into this," if you e-mail them asking about bots that ran for about a year and were destroyed in 2006.

With the reputation of UB's slow support, it seems plausible that they would be slow in dealing with this issue, and debating whether or not they could just make it go away quietly and cheaply (which may seem unethical, but my point is every online poker site has this policy.)

The crux of the matter is if the managment themselves were complacent in this scam. If they weren't, AND they resolve this to the players satisfaction, than UB, Bax, et. al, are in clear as far as I'm concerned.

on the other hand, if the CURRENT managment was complacent in the cheating, or they don't resolve fairly in the near future, then UB, Bax, PXF, Sheets, Shaundeeb... can all rot in hell. lol

oops

i have to say i am pretty satisfied with your response to my post, but i still disagree on a couple things. I'm not sure if what I quoted exactly reflects what I disagree with but anyway. first i just want to clear up that this thread is about Bax. UB is pretty much dead to me, i know they are scum and it isn't up for debate in my mind. Involving themselves with anyone with any shred of credibility will elevate their standards I'm sure. I just think it looks bad on Bax to be getting involved with them, and I do judge his character based on it. If he's got some clause about fixing the whole thing first then ok i guess, still I don't exactly respect him for it but I wouldn't be up in arms against the whole idea, I'd just ignore it.

Also, I guess I'm more apt to instantly attack someone than to let them have the benefit of the doubt, especially when there was/is no good explanation in my mind for what they did. The clause explanation comes close but still leaves a bad taste. To defend an associate's credibility and reserve judgement until we see what happens is an admirable position, if that is in fact what you are doing. Maybe I should do the same, but something about this issue instantly struck a cord with me and I couldn't resist. Maybe it's the fact that Bax, though we've never met, kind've rubs me the wrong way in the first place, or it could be the soul crushing downswing I'm on, or just a general negative attitude that i have. still taking all that into account, I stand by everything i've said in this thread.